“What?” I asked.
“Love has nothing to do with it,” Rorik said, shaking his head. “You do your duty to your alpha. That is what I was taught.”
Rage surged through my blood like a volcanic eruption.
“Then whoever taught you that was an idiot,” I snapped.
Rorik stared at me. The soft warmth I’d seen on his face when he played with the girls was gone, iced over like a blizzard on the tundra. His expression was cool and restrained, but I sensed the storm of emotions beneath the surface. He’d retreated. He was hiding again.
I breathed hard. The anger didn’t subside. I usually didn’t get so worked up, but what Rorik said pissed me off. Who the hell twisted his mind into such backwards, subservient knots? As the anger flooded my veins, I felt my nails shift into dragon claws.
Rorik watched my claws warily, but said nothing. He glanced at Aurum’s bedroom door for a second, then back at me.
“It is late,” he finally murmured. “I should return to the hotel.”
Was that a note of fear in his voice? Shit, I didn’t mean to scare him.
“Let me walk you back,” I offered, reaching out for him.
Rorik’s eyes locked onto my talons. They curved unnaturally on my hand, five obsidian daggers jutting from the tips of my human fingers.
Rorik’s voice was cool and firm. Distant. “Thank you for the offer, but I can make it on my own,” he said, already halfway out the door.
My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach.
No… I screwed everything up!
As I stood frozen with indecision and doubt, Rorik left without saying goodnight.
7
Rorik
Dragons are dangerous.
Dragons are evil.
Dragons must be killed at all costs.
The glint of Saffron’s black talons gripped my mind. I was foolish. How could I have forgotten the basic commandments of my training? Sheba was right. Dragons were manipulative. Nefarious. In the span of an hour, Saffron had lowered my guard almost to the point of real trust—and then his talons emerged.
I shuddered. Those sickle blades could shred through flesh like paper.
My heart lurched as I hurried back to the hotel. It wasn’t safe there, either—nothing was truly safe in the dragons’ domain—but it was the closest thing to a home.
I have to finish my mission and go back to my real home as soon as possible.
Saffron’s smile floated into my mind like a blinding ray of sunlight. I screwed my eyes shut, shaking it off.
It was all a trick. He wanted me to feel safe and secure; then he’d strike.
But that incident with the ferret children…
My chest tightened painfully. Was that a trick, too? I didn’t think so. Saffron’s warmth towards those kits felt genuine, and Aurum clearly loved his daughters.
But why hadn’t Sheba warned me there were children involved? Then my initial outrage redirected at my own ignorance. I should’ve put the pieces together myself. Of course there were children involved. The entire point of the damned Games was for the dragons to breed.
I was foolish. I should’ve devised a better plan.
